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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

After over 30 years (and 1000's of hours) of listening to serious Medieval & Renaissance Choral music - and Renaissance Lute music, I've finally had the pleasure of having an intelligent and artful rendering of both the Lute versions of what were famous serious choral works in their day, and the choral versions directly following.

To me, Valentin Bakfark has always been the Lutenist-Composer who most exemplified the highest musical form of his time, which was choral polyphony. His works have the most free-flowing Renaissance counterpoint of any Lute composer I've heard. Many of the Renaissance Lutenist-Composers that are the most famous today wrote mainly what can be charitably be described as quaint parlor dances.

Bakfark wrote serious pieces - on a 6-course Lute (his tablature has only 6 lines) he wrote counterpoint for as many as 5 parts, which is almost impossible.

Performing Lutenist Istvan Gyori does a very good job managing the polyphony. I've heard many Lutenists struggle awfully trying to play Bakfark, but Gyori seems to glide through the difficult passages. The choir, Voces Aequales, does a very good job singing in the Renaissance style - very smooth, and well blended.

A must for anyone who loves serious Renaissance choral music, and/or anyone who loves the sound of the Lute.

The ensemble Voces Aequales is comprised of six male singers who came together in 1993, under this name to perform the sacred vocal music of the Renaissance.

Valentin Bakfark was a Transylvanian composer and an outstanding lutenist in the 16th century. Although his output was rather small, his fame spread from the French court and all the way to VILNIUS and many places in between. His lute music is in the form of intabulations which originate from pre-existing polyphonic vocal pieces for the lute.

In this recording, the vocal ensemble Voces Aequales takes an unusual approach to Bakfarks' intabulations; the latter are performed first by lutenist, Istvan Gyori and are followed by the vocal original performed by the vocal ensemble. These are alternated throughout the disc.

One must give 'kudos' to the Voces Aequales for skill and creativity, because what they have done is produce an album of lute music for the voice. However, no matter how faithful Bakfark's intabulations are implemented, they sound nothing like the vocal originals. I am presently searching for an album in which Voces Aequales performs in a more traditional manner, for their skill is obvious!

The accompanying booklet is in English, French, German; and includes the words to all the songs.